Regional resilience, skill-relatedness and growth of plants

The research question is “to what extent does regional relatedness influence the survival and growth potential of plants during and after economic shocks in the Netherlands?” is answered by using state-of-the art indicators, distinguishing resilience subperiods, and uniquely analysing growth on the plant level. This thesis considers the regional economic structure (“agglomeration forces”) as an explanatory variable for a plant’s growth potential. By measuring relatedness, diversification and specialization, the impact on individual plants is analysed and their impact can be compared. Relatedness is measured both on a region specific (cohesion) and a region-industry specific (closeness) dimension. It is concluded that the region-industry specific dimension has higher explanatory value. The heterogeneity of agglomeration impact on employment growth between industries is unveiled, as the influence of the regional economic structure deviates when estimating its relation with plant growth for a selection of various industries. For knowledge-intensive sectors, like high-tech and creative industries, the number of related industries appears to have a positive impact, contrary to other industries. Overall, relatedness can positively influence employment growth of plants, however this is context (i.e. industry, phase of crisis) specific and not per se to a larger extent than other agglomeration forces like diversification or specialization.